w14 Final Reflection

 

Measurable & Proven

Characterized by various articles and videos that I viewed in this course on social innovation, social change is the result of the intentional work of people trying to make positive change happen by addressing complex problems at the roots. Social change is a process, product, or program that profoundly changes how a given system operates. In order to design and implement a social solution an individual or business must consider the problems through two constraints: One, that the solution must address a legitimate social issue and two, that the solution is determined by root cause analysis more effectively. Measuring impact on social change is for the benefit of the people in whom the program was intended to claim to help verses to entice donors and investors. Verifying that a solution actually works and does not create more problems is one of the most difficult social innovation roadblocks. Social innovation impact must be measurable and proven. 

Einstein illustrates a critical thinking skill when he said, “If I had 60 minutes to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I’d spend 55 minutes determining the right question to ask” (BYUI instruction material W04 bus374). Defining the right problem to solve is the most important of all the stages of design thinking. It requires a team or business to always question the problem to be solved and to participate in defining the opportunity and to revising the opportunity before embarking on its creation and execution. In chapter 19 in our textbook, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, James Grant, head of UNICEF, said that the problems surrounding child mortality were not because of the lack of human ingenuity, because scientific advances and social conditions to meet the needs of all the world’s children, already exist (p.250). It was Grant who altered the gears of UNICEF and lead the way and brought to light the vast capacity for diminishing disease and death for the world’s children by simply providing and supplying low-cost techniques, vaccinations, and monitoring a child’s health (p.250-251). Design thinking is an important skill in social innovation because sometimes you need to draw the box in order to know what to break out of (Design thinking… what is that? https://www.fastcompany.com/919258/design-thinking-what).

Among the many things I took away from this course’s assignments, Yunus’s urging that one should "always be ready to unlearn and relearn" (Muhammad Yunus, Microlending: Toward a Poverty Free World) caused me to pause and ponder. For myself, not only am I having to unlearn things, but I am needing to gain understanding of the world around me and be prepared to share that understanding that I gain. Coming to a surer knowledge that leaving big social problems to someone else to resolve is not what Heavenly Father wants for me --or for any of us is among those concepts I gained through this course on social change. Social Entrepreneurs see a problem, have a solution, and make solving that problem their passion and their career, thus creating both an impact socially and economically. Social Intrapreneurs implement products, a service, or a business that creates change in a community and brings value to the society. One remarkable  social innovator I read about was E. Amaral, who had developed an inexpensive rural electrification system in Brazil to sink wells and pump water to boost farm incomes (How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas).

            Environmental, philanthropy, volunteer, and fair and ethical labor practices are the four practices of innovative organizations discussed in the article Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by Business News Daily which we studied in this course. The article went on to say that of these four practices, none is more crucial than the other because of the impact each makes by meeting specific need(s) as well as expressing concern/support for specific issues and social causes. Nevertheless, the same article pointed out, the practice of environmental responsibility carries a great deal of importance for one essential reason, the reduction of the businesses carbon footprint is good for both the company and society. “The economy is a means to an end, not the end itself. It’s important to remember that paying the bills happens on multiple levels, and ultimately, we’re all dependent on photosynthesis”. Eco-friendly accountability impacts the businesses success in philanthropy, volunteering, and fair and ethical practices. The opposite of following these practices would resemble a CSR that is participating in charitable efforts, but ones that are not related to their core business focus or that violate the company's ethical standards in any way.  Another sign that the business is not CSR is when their focus in everything they do is solely for marketing purposes; such as if a business were waiting to apply sustainable activities because they aren't legally required yet. These four practices are used to emphasize what an innovative organization looks like. Lego, is an example of a CSR company. The toy company has invested millions of dollars into addressing climate change and reducing waste. Lego's environmentally conscious efforts include reduced packaging, using sustainable materials and investing in alternative energy. Starbucks is also a CSR business, implementing a socially responsible hiring process to diversify their workforce. Their efforts are focused on hiring more veterans, young people looking to start their careers, and refugees.

A specific reading in this course that sparked a deeper interest in social innovation was “The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship”, by J. Gregory Dees, original Oct. 1998, Reformatted and revised May 2001. Dees says that Social Entrepreneurship combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like innovation and that it implies a blurring of sector boundaries. I understood this to mean that businesses not only are there to put out a product or a service but should intentionally be interconnected with improving the world. An example of this is TOMS shoes, where for every pair of shoes purchased, a new pair was given to a child in need, however no social skill for change is being given. It is right to say that entrepreneurships serve their function by starting new, profit-seeking business ventures, however starting a business is not the essence of entrepreneurship. An example given in Dees’ paper was that if a husband and wife open up a second restaurant to expand their business, that it is not entrepreneurship because it is neither innovative or change oriented.  Before reading Dees’ paper I had not considered that entrepreneurship's create value. Joseph Schumpeter, and economist who is quoted in Dees’ paper, described entrepreneurships as the innovators who drive the "creative-destructive" process of capitalism which reform or revolutionize the pattern of production.

In the for-profit sector, the more value you produce, the more money you can make. Yet our society looks down on nonprofits which use money to incentivize people to produce more in social service. Interestingly the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people is a powerful negative side effect which gives a really stark, mutually exclusive choice between doing very well for yourself and your family or doing good for the world. To the brightest minds coming out of our best universities which send tens of thousands of people who could make a huge difference in the nonprofit sector every year, these individuals go directly into the for-profit sector because they're not willing to make that kind of lifelong economic sacrifice. 

In this class I have learned that charitable giving has remained stuck in the U.S. at approximately just two percent ever since we started measuring it in the 1970s. The nonprofit sector has not been able to wrestle any market share away from the for-profit sector. The risk taking in pursuit of new ideas for generating revenue is easier for for-profits than nonprofits. Nonprofits are really reluctant to attempt any brave, daring, giant-scale new fundraising endeavors, for fear that if the thing fails, their reputations will be dragged through the mud.

Having a powerful and clear mission statement which actually creates a metric to measure success only need have approximately eight words made up of a verb, a target population or setting, and an outcome that tells us something to measure. For example, “get African families out of extreme poverty”. In creating a metric to measure success, you need to accurately describe success. Three words that are used to describe the results that equal success of nonprofits. Outputs are the activities done by the nonprofit, such as meals served by a soup kitchen, and the outcomes are the observed effects of the outputs on the beneficiaries of the nonprofit, such as the degree to which the meals served by the soup kitchen reduce hunger in the population served by the soup kitchen. Impact is the degree to which the outcomes observed by a nonprofit are attributable to its activities, such as the degree to which a reduction of hunger in the population the soup kitchen serves is attributable to its efforts. While a soup kitchen might serve a lot of meals and correctly observe that hunger is subsequently less prevalent in the population in which it serves, the reduction in hunger might simply be attributable to an improving economy or a new school lunch program or some other activities that are not part of the soup kitchen’s efforts. How to measure  progress toward those dreams, and what resources they need to make them come true. The week that we worked on the assignment "Root Cause Analysis Tracing a Problem to its Origins" an example was shared that brought the concept into tangible view and sparked my interest. "In medicine, it's easy to understand the difference between treating the symptoms and curing the condition. A broken wrist, for example, really hurts! But painkillers will only take away the symptoms; you'll need a different treatment to help your bones heal properly". Thankfully, I have never had a broken bone, but I have taken medication for a symptom only a few hours later to have them re-surface. 

When a nonprofit organization has a dream of building to a large scale, years are needed verse a non-for profit which are viewed as creditable. In a nonprofit sector, increasing employees time and funding is frowned upon and they can't pay comparably. The for-profit sector has a lock on the multi-trillion-dollar capital markets and the nonprofit sector is starved for growth and risk and idea capital. So, the next time you're looking at a charity ask what percentage of the donation goes to the cause versus overhead. There are a lot of problems with this question, two being that it makes us think that overhead is a negative and that it is somehow not part of the cause, and the other –a much larger problem—is that it forces organizations to go without the overhead they need to truly grow simply in the interest of keeping overhead low. This idea that overhead is somehow an enemy of the cause creates the impasse that non-profits face. To create lasting social change going forward we must change the way we think about nonprofits. Most nonprofits and NGO's are actively doing good, but does that make them socially innovative? No! True social innovations create solutions to systemic issues.

Like the pioneers who after years of arduous labor had to re-build the foundation of the Temple after discovering weaknesses, this course has brought forward my weaknesses and poor understanding of what true aide looks like. Going forward in my education and as I pursue a career in recreational therapy, I am better equipped to place myself in pivotal places and businesses which truly effect social change. The gospel and social innovation are powerful and effective tools which when used together will not only bless my life, career, and family, but bring tangible aide to God’s work and glory in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of men. (Moses 1:39). God has blessed me with a natural love for ‘doing’. By having more sure foundation an understanding of how true social change is brought about I can use my spiritual gifts more effectively to create change. I instinctively think of others and prefer working alongside them and through what I learned in this course and as I pray and fast over social injustices, I will be able to know where, who, what, and how to contribute to true social change. Volunteers and donors are needed to pitch in and make things happen through monetary support or giving tangible time to the cause. In the video clip HELP international it states “you” are the answer. You can commit to finding answers, can be nimble of mind and fill multiple roles with the agility needed to find unique answers to unique people, and that you can solve these problems. Prior to taking this course, I was allowing things such as not having access to materials, money, resources, level of education, or being uncomfortable in political settings keep me from pursuing ideas that would bring about social change. As this course brought to the forefront, the goal is to produce a society in which there were no poor to give to. Social change must be quantifiable and verified.